In recent times, digital cameras or camcorders may store photos and images by obtaining color information and brightness information. Such an apparatus may be defined as a two-dimensional (2D) camera system. An apparatus for providing a realistic three-dimensional (3D) image by obtaining additional depth information in the 2D camera system may be defined as a 3D camera system.
The 3D camera system may obtain both color information and depth information of a predetermined object from a single sensor. A sensor in a new integrated structure may be required for obtaining the color information and the depth information from the single sensor concurrently. The sensor in the new integrated structure may be divided into two sensors.
One of the divided sensors may include a space division based sensor. The space division based sensor may obtain color information and depth information simultaneously through a pixel for obtaining color information and a pixel for obtaining depth information distributed in a consistent pattern, in a sensor array space.
The other divided sensor may include a time division based sensor. The time division based sensor may obtain color information and depth information by dividing the color information and the depth information temporally. The time division based sensor may be provided with various functions because a single pixel is required to obtain the color information and the depth information simultaneously.